


Good Will Haunting

by FandomUnleashed204



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-26 11:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20741456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FandomUnleashed204/pseuds/FandomUnleashed204
Summary: Spoilers, of course. Crossposted from Fanfiction.net under the same names.The afterlife for Tony and Natasha left them stuck in the soul stone after they sacrificed their lives. But when they have an opportunity to escape offered by everyone's favorite cameo, they take it in a race against the clock with their very souls on the line in a desperate bid to prove their need to return to life. Rated teen and up for (cue Cap) "Language!"





	1. And So It Begins

Tony knew that he was dead. After all, no perfectly normal human (albeit a self-described genius billionaire playboy philanthropist) could wield the infinity stones and expect to live.

_At least Morgan isn’t here to watch me die,_ he reasoned. _Seeing it in person is so much worse. I hope to God she doesn’t find that out the hard way, like me._

He felt his grip on reality itself slipping, washing away with a strange sense of peace taking its place in his final moments.

_Here it is. The big moment. Here lies Tony Stark, husband, father, and Avenger. In that order, or so help me, I will haunt the shit out of everybody. Going, going…_

And then he was gone. Or so he thought.

_What the hell?_

Tony was floating up through a layer of water. Normally, that would have been enough to bring on a panic attack, but the strange euphoria of dying at last still hadn’t faded. He followed the light filtering through the surface above, taking his time until a hand plunged through and the savior of the universe was unceremoniously yanked from beneath the surface before being dumped in the shallows as he sputtered and coughed. Tony rolled onto his side and opened his eyes.

_What the actual hell? Is this even the real thing or…_

He was pretty sure that he was looking at a bland, knockoff version of hell. The landscape was made of shallow waters but kept the warm color scheme that he had imagined being introduced to upon his death. His vision of orange was tainted to a slowly focusing blur of black topped with bright red. _That looks familiar…_

“Tony? Oh, God, not you. It wasn’t supposed to be you. Just me.”

The figure knelt beside him and helped him upright with a surprising amount of strength. He sighed, rubbed his eyes, and greeted the blur with a knowing, “Hi Nat. Nice to know I’m not the only one in… wherever this is. It’s not Malibu, but it’ll do for now.” He blinked, taking the familiar sight of the assassin in her black combat suit. She smiled sadly. “Tony.”

“Natasha. Looks like we both remember each other’s names. Where are we?”

“The soul stone,” she replied softly. The pair stood, and walked together in comforting silence before Tony spoke again.

“How long were you waiting here with them?”

“It felt like weeks until you arrived. I was here alone, hearing their voices but I couldn’t see anyone. I was convinced that I would be alone forever and that my death meant nothing until it all faded and you showed up.”

“Is this all there is to this place?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Can you try and swim out?”

“You can’t go below the surface at all. Believe me, I tried, and the only time I could was when I went to pull you out.”

“So you’re telling me that there’s nothing to do besides annoy each other and wander endlessly on an unknown plane of existence? To be honest, I was expecting more demons with pitchforks and maybe a meet-and-greet with dead politicians.”

Natasha’s lips quirked up in a smile. “To hell with that idea. I thought you’d be headed somewhere with a halo over your head. A crooked one, but still a halo.”

“Excuse me? I’d have that thing fixed and covered in glitter before you could say… hey, what’s wrong? Seriously, is something bothering you, Red?” Tony said, following her line of sight to a quaint scene of three cozy leather chairs in a circle around a fireplace, freshly materialized from out of nowhere.

“That… wasn’t there before,” he managed to say, resigning himself to stare at the gathering of furniture.

“Well no shit, Sherlock,” she murmured, “What happened? Who did this?”

“That would be me,” said a new voice coming from behind them. When the two whipped around, the voice chuckled from the chair nearest to the fireplace and the pair spun around again. “I didn’t mean to spook you, but that was fun. Sit down, pull up a chair, we have a lot to catch up on.”


	2. Stan, I've Come to Bargain

The speaker was an old man with well-combed silver hair and eyes glittering with mirth snapped his fingers and Tony flinched at the sound before finding himself in the chair across from the man. Natasha appeared in the one next to him, shocked but looking ready for a fight.

“Make yourselves at home, it’s not like anyone’s leaving any time soon. So how’s the stone been treating you?”

Tony was quick to reply. “Well, I just got here, you’d have to ask Nat over there.”

“Who even are you?” asked Natasha, “And how did you get here?”

The newcomer smiled knowingly. “Just call me Stan, and I’m here to make you a deal.”

“Wait, do I have to sell my soul? I’m pretty sure it belongs to the stone we’re all stuck in, or Pepper,” said Tony, “She would probably march in and take it back before you could even offer, just to warn you.”

The man grinned. “Don’t worry, you won’t owe me anything. And Pepper isn’t one even I would mess with.” Tony visibly relaxed.

“What kind of deal are you offering? And, again- how did you even get here?” inquired Natasha.

Stan sighed. “Like the two of you, I am dead. But you could say that the stone and I go way back, and I don’t feel like moving on quite yet. Say hello, stone.”

There was a deep rumbling that gently shook the pocket of existence that the group was stuck in to its very core. Tony almost jumped out of his seat while Natasha shuddered. Stan merely smiled fondly.

“Now, what is it that the two of you want most? The stone is willing to release its grip and let you move on to the peaceful afterlife that you’ve more than earned by now. If that’s what you want, then you can follow me.”

Natasha sucked in a small breath before speaking. “I doubt that where I would wind up would be any more pleasant than this, if it goes by what I’ve earned and the lives I’ve taken.”

Tony looked at her incredulously. “Natasha, you gave up your life to give half of the universe a shot at returning. Long before that, you had whatever debt you think you owe to the world paid. If there’s anyone that deserves moving on to something better-”

Natasha abruptly cut him off. “It’s you. When you showed up, I knew it. We won. Thanos is gone, but you had to have been the one to sacrifice yourself to end it.”

“Nat, I can’t move on. I left it all behind, and not so that I could escape to a goddamn afterlife I didn’t know existed. So Pepper, Morgan, Happy, Rhodey, Peter, the team, so everyone could live, even if that meant I wouldn’t,” he shot back.

“I can’t go either.” she said softly.

Tony looked back at Stan, who had been watching the conversation with an observant, soulful look in his eyes. “It’s settled. We can’t go on, and we want- scratch that, we need a way back home.” 

The old man nodded. “I suspected as much. There’s so much fight in people like you, and it looks like neither of you are done fighting yet. All you have to do is prove to the stone that you should go back. That the world will be better off with you back in it, that the legacy you have left isn’t enough to keep it going. If you choose to rise to this final challenge and fail, the stone will claim your souls. It doesn’t often come across such bright ones, but it would like to keep yours as company, from what it tells me.”

“Why doesn’t it just hold on to yours?” blurted Tony.

“There was no bargain with me. Just an old friendship allowing me to give you this chance, should you accept. I’m warning you though- no takesie-backsies.” said Stan, eyes glinting mischievously. 

Natasha nodded grimly. “I have nothing left to lose. I accept.”

“I’m with her on this, we have friends and family to return to. I’m in.” said Tony.

“Alright,” said Stan. “Before we begin, there are a few rules. You will be able to interact with the world as if you were ghosts. Unfortunately, you cannot explicitly or obviously draw anyone’s attention to the fact that it is you. Subtle actions, hints, and clues are the absolute most you can get away with when interacting with a specific person- they need to figure it out on their own, or not at all. Second, you only get a specific amount of power to use daily. The soul stone will only allow you to draw so much from it, but you will get better as you use it more often. And finally, I’m sticking around to offer some guidance and give you warnings as needed. Are you ready?”

Natasha and Tony made eye contact with each other before looking over at the man and nodding.

“Good luck, and see you around!” he said before waving a hand. For the two dead Avengers, the world spun around them at dizzying speeds before disappearing altogether in an orange haze.


	3. Back in Black (With a Hint of Orange)

The world slowly stopped spinning around Tony quickly enough for him to land flat on his ass in the path of a moving car and register the headlights of said car barreling straight at him.

“Oh, shit!” he yelped, shutting his eyes and waiting for the moment of impact… that never came. 

The car passed clean through him with an airy whoosh that he barely felt, leaving him with a tingly sensation before the next ones ran his intangible form over, over and over again.

“NYC drivers are the best, am I right?” Natasha drawled sarcastically before floating over to Tony and pulling him up.

“Of course.” he deadpanned. They walked out of the street, under a nearby streetlight, and then stood there for a moment, taking the sight of each other in. Each looked like they did when they were alive, except more transparent despite the color and subtle solidness of their forms. If they looked close enough at each other, they could see an almost unnoticeable orange glow surrounding their ghostly bodies.

“Where even is this in the city?” Tony asked. 

Natasha looked around. “Queens. The clock in that shop window over there says that it’s 6, and I’m guessing that it’s six in the evening.”

Queens. Tony’s chest tightened. Peter lives in Queens. I just have to find him, follow him, and find everyone else…

“Hey. Tony. I know that the spider kid lives around here, but we need a plan and we need to figure out what we need to do and what we can actually do before we run off and burn ourselves out. Remember, there’s a cap on our available magic or whatever you want to call it.” Natasha said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll get around to finding him, I promise. We just have to figure out where everyone else is, too.”

Tony fixed his pleading brown eyes on her. “He’s the closest one out of any of them. We can find him first. Please, Nat.”

Her features softened. “Do you even know where to find him-”

“Good evening, New York City! Man, how I’ve missed you!” shouted a red and blue blur swinging by.

“That’s him! Kid!” yelled Tony, sprinting through the air. “Peter, get your tiny, teenaged butt back here-”

“Tony, he can’t hear you!” yelled Natasha, chasing after the other ‘ghost’ and catching him by the collar of his AC/DC shirt before dragging him to the top of a nearby building. “He can’t hear you. As much as it hurts, we shouldn’t do anything else before we find anyone else and see what we can do for them. Please.”

Tony visibly deflated. “Sure. Fine. We can head upstate to headquarters. There’s gotta be at least someone in the Avengers’ Compound, or what’s left of it.” His agreement certainly didn’t match the quiet misery in his tone or the empty look in his eyes, which followed the trail of webbing down the street.

“We’ll see him again soon. I remember how to go there and flying is easier than I thought.” Natasha said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You ready?”

“Yeah.” he answered simply, and together they took off. Tony took to flying as a ‘ghost’ rather naturally. He whooped and soared too far ahead of Natasha’s controlled gliding before circling back to her side, often with an impressive looking aerial maneuver. After all, he had spent years fighting in a flying metal suit, and it almost looked like he was still wearing one with the similar way he moved across the sky. Natasha, on the other hand, flew with fluid grace and ease that reflected years of discipline as a dancer. She guided Tony to the compound, seeing as there was no Friday to do the job for him, but he seemed to know which way they were going.

From both far away and above, the compound looked like an unfinished lego set rather than the equivalent of a demolished one that Tony was expecting. There was slow but thorough activity from construction crews below, who were set on clearing out the rubble and preserving as much as they could of the original structures before continuing the repairs. 

“They’ve been busy. How long has it even been?” asked Tony.

“I don’t know yet,” admitted Natasha. “Let’s see who’s even down there and figure it out.”

“So mission-oriented. I’m glad that you wound up sticking around me long enough to know the definition of fun,” grumbled Tony.

The spy raised an eyebrow. “Clint did that first, and I’m more than confident in saying that our definitions of fun must be very different, Stark.”

“Now there’s the Natasha I’ve been waiting for this whole time!” he crowed. “C’mon, let’s go see if Rhodey’s around here somewhere. I promised him way back in college to haunt the living shit out of him if I died first.” 

Natasha smirked. “There’s the Tony I’ve been waiting for this whole time. I want in on haunting the shit out of your best friend, too.” 

“Last one there’s a rotten egg!” Tony shouted, diving down towards the residential area.

Natasha let out a low chuckle before plummeting after him.

Somewhere in Queens, less than an hour earlier…

Peter’s spider-senses were giving off a small tingle as he swung through the city for the first time in what felt like ages. Normally, he would have ignored the sensation because his senses were always going off whenever he was out, giving him subtle signals that were almost purely instinctual to react to by now. But this sensation was different, as if he had a form of built-in radar he didn’t even know about picking up a blip for the first time. 

Wait, two tiny blips? 

Under the mask, he frowned. The feeling faded almost as abruptly as it came, as if he was getting out of range way too quickly.

That’s really weird. Maybe I should ask Mr. Stark about what I should do about new spider-sense feelings- oh. Right.

Peter teared up. Thank god his mask was so absorbent on the inside. He swung onto the side of a building and crawled to the roof. He couldn’t sense any nearby security cameras or other threats to his secret identity, so he pulled the mask off and let the tears fall. 

“Why did it have to be him? He was a good man that didn’t deserve it. Just like Ben. And my parents, from what I hear and kinda remember. I want him back, just like anybody else with half a brain or heart, because he had both,” Peter pleaded with the universe. “Just like they said- whatever it takes.”

Fortunately, the universe had answered before he even asked.


End file.
